NEW YORK—Nevin Cohen speaks quietly about his passion. Though measured, academic and scholarly, his eyes twinkle as he explains the importance of planning a more viable food system for New York City.
Cohen began his career in urban planning, then moved on to work for a council member and was involved in writing the city’s recycling law in the 1980s. After a career working on issues of waste, toxins, and consulting with private companies, he was drawn to the overlooked, but critical issue of food policy.
The Epoch Times: Why does “food” need policy? Either you have it or you don’t, no?
Nevin Cohen: Public officials and planners have treated food as something that is provided by the market and has no broad urban policy implementation, like shoes, or music, or some other commodity the private market provides. But there are significant public policies involving food in cities. One is that cities are involved in providing infrastructure for getting food into the city. New York City’s Economic Development Corporation operates North America’s largest terminal market for produce in Hunts Point in the Bronx. Cities buy a tremendous amount of food. New York City’s Department of Education is the second largest institutional food supplier next to the military.
Epoch Times: How is New York City doing on the issue of food planning?
Cohen: New York City is one of the leaders in rethinking the food thinking. The leadership in the city has come from different places. It comes from grass-roots organizations that have been lobbying on issues like hunger. It comes from community gardeners, and it comes from political leadership as well. There are 45 different agencies in New York City that directly affect the food system, but none of them have food in their mandate. We have one food policy coordinator in New York City and she has a deputy, and as far as I know, no other staff.
Epoch Times: Do you think that as a teacher, you are having an impact?
Cohen: I hope so. What we have seen is a tremendous amount of interest in food as a subject. More than I have seen in the last 20 years. Their goal is to change the system. That is heartening. I hope that by teaching them I will have an impact. The challenge is to show the students how this is a system that has many different variables, and to help them figure out how they can intervene to make change. How, for example, a community garden affects the corn and soy bean subsidies; how the school food program affects the diets people have when they become older ... why that increases corn production and results in the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. If you care about marine pollution, you need to care about the amount of McDonald’s hamburgers we are eating. That is both overwhelming and empowering.
Epoch Times: Do you enjoy it?
Cohen: I find food policy to be an interesting issue. People are just realizing that it is a significant urban issue. I think there is a lot of creativity coming to the issue and I see cities doing a lot of innovative things that suggest there is a possibility of really transforming the food system that in the past 60, 70, or 80 years has evolved into an unsustainable, unsupportable, destructive system.
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